Monday, December 13, 2010

MOUSEKETEER MUTINY

Our pals at Delancey Place sent this small nugget, suggesting that maybe a kind of revolution can flourish from the smallest seed. (Watch out for that little fucker bottom right. Potential Charlie Starkweather-style mass murderer?)

“The pre-teen boys who starred in The Mickey Mouse Club defied the wishes of the show's producers and tilted their Mouseketeer caps back to show off their golden pompadours. Then, as usual, one of the paunchy Mickey Mouse Club producers would come along and flatten the twelve-year-old Mouseketeer's coif with one glunk of his black-winged beanie straight onto the top of his head, suctioning it to his cranium and cutting a line across his eyebrows as if, perhaps, his brain might come off with it if squeezed tightly enough. A guy could have the coolest hair in town, but no one would know about it if he wore his Mouseketeer cap according to regulation. This fact alone made many of the older, teenage boys among The Mickey Mouse Club's two dozen cast members hate those ears that would become such icons of the 1950s. Pompadours were the rage. The guys had to have their waves out. The solution: the boys would act like they were going along with the producers' ridiculous rules until the last second before shooting started, then sneak the cap back two inches or so, just as cameras started to roll, pushing as much hair as possible forward with it to approximate a decent wave. It was the dawn of the rock 'n’ roll era, and hair was a priority.” Jennifer Armstrong – “Why? Because We Still Like You” (Grand Central)